Bad drivers raising a generation of worse drivers

I’m hesitant to write about myself, as I find it lazy blogging. But here goes, because I think it might spark a nature-nurture argument.

I was raised largely by a single mother who had nothing to do with teaching me to drive. In my youth, though, I depended on her for rides unless I took the bus. My father died when I was 9, and most of my memories of his driving involve looking at the back of his head in a 1980 Ford Granada.

Whereas my mother to this day drives 15 miles under the speed limit, and used to make practice trips the day before she went somewhere new because she was a nervous driver, my father drove fast and loose.

Despite probably spending more on-board time with my mother (probably because it took her three times as long to get anywhere in the slow lane with her blinker on, stopping at lights that could turn yellow), I drive much more like my dad. My goal, as I believe his was, is to pass the person in front of me at all times.

4 Responses

My Dad taught me to drive. Because he learned & was first licensed in the UK, he actually had to *know* how to drive a car, unlike American drivers. We spent a lot of time driving around a nearby office park on weekends (great way to learn without a lot of people around) and I still remember things he taught me 30 years ago: turn your head and LOOK in those blind spots before you change lanes. Expect the other guy to do something dumb. Don’t accelerate and slam on the brakes (his way of putting it was “Pretend the Queen is in the back seat having tea and you don’t want her spilling it.”) Be PREDICTABLE – do exactly what the traffic signals say (take the right of way assertively when you have it, stop when you don’t) because that’s better than being “nice” and waiting for the person who should be waiting for YOU to go. Look a couple of cars ahead in traffic. Know the size of your car and you lane.

I don’t think people learn this stuff now and it’s kind of terrifying. I can’t tell you how regularly people change lanes without looking at all. I’ve gotten very tuned into this because I also ride a motorcycle.

Getting a license should be a LOT harder than it is now. One thing that really struck me when I moved to Houston was that drivers seem to have no concept of the size of their vehicles – on any small street people are driving right down the middle and don’t seem to realize that yes, there is PLENTY of room to drive past each other, as long as you both drive on the right.

I don’t see a lot of older people texting and surfing the web on their phones. That seems to be a practice of the young. I do see a fairly even spread across the driving age spectrum TALKING on their phones, however.

My parents were both very cautious drivers. Still are. Probably overcautious would describe them today (in their late 70s). I’m a lot more aggressive, unless my wife and toddler are in the car with me.

My parents are crazy safe drivers. Neither has ever gotten a ticket. My mother got a warning once for cutting through a parking lot to avoid a traffic jam (whereupon we learned that that was illegal). Meanwhile, I am an unapologetic speeder, and I don’t mean by 5 or even 10 miles, and am considering a bumper sticker that reads “You’ve just been passed by a Prius.” I flip people off, you name it… But then I’m nuts.